“We are driving into a wall at a speed of over 100 km/h” warns the Association of Renewable Energy Companies – “There is no problem”, says the Ministry of Energy
Opinions are conflicting over whether Cyprus's system will “handle” all the new PV expected to be added under the Solar for All Plan, with the Association of Renewable Energy Companies sounding the alarm and the Ministry of Energy not “sees” problems.
“We should be concerned”
Speaking on the state radio and asked if the Cyprus system is holding up, the President of the Association of Renewable Energy Companies, Mr. Fanos Karantonis, replied that “we should be worried, because we see that we are driving into a wall at a speed of over 100 kilometers”. As he noted, “we've also seen the cut applied to home systems more frequently than last year.”
He explained that “the problem that exists in Cyprus is that during a long period of the year we have low demand at times when we have high co-generation pressure from renewable sources and especially from photovoltaics. That is, today as we speak, during lunch, the country's demand is very low in consumption and very high in production, and we have high demand in the afternoon hours. And all this is a result of the lack of smart meters and the lack of mechanisms”.
“We have warned the state and managers”
In conclusion, then, according to Mr. Karantoni, “it is not necessarily a matter of 'saturation' of the network, the problem is simply a matter of demand. And this problem will touch horizontally at some stage all the production systems and inevitably also the domestic ones. We have been ringing this bell for a long time both for the state and the administrators”.
“The state should not have given subsidies for the installation of photovoltaic systems”
“We believe that the state is wrongly directing financing and subsidies to the installation of photovoltaic systems”, said Mr. Karantonis. “This subsidy should go to energy storage systems and drive the consumer to use batteries in the household, to be able to drive the excess midday production into their storage system and use it again in the afternoon.”
The Ministry of Energy does not “see” problems
On the other hand, when asked about this, the Director General of the Ministry of Energy, Mr. Marios Panagidis, replied that “these systems are not concentrated in one place, they are scattered throughout Cyprus, so we believe that the electricity distribution system will not have a problem. But that will be seen by the experts, which is the Electricity Authority”.
source: Economy Today
